Cuomo convenes wage board for tipped workers

Tipped food-service workers could be eligible for a pay increase in the near future. On Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the state Labor Department to convene a panel to "recommend any changes to the relevant regulations for food service workers and service employees" in New York.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the state Labor Department Thursday to convene a wage board to possibly recommend raising the minimum wage for tipped workers in the food service industry.

Mr. Cuomo's order, which Crain's first reported in June, fulfills a promise he made in 2013 after a deal to raise the state's minimum wage excluded tipped food-service workers. The 2013 law raised the minimum wage incrementally to $8 in 2014, $8.75 in 2015 and $9 in 2016, but did not increase the $5-an-hour minimum base pay for food-service workers who also receive tips.

The board will hold public hearings "to ensure fairness and determine if changes need to be made to the regulations that govern the rates paid to service workers," the governor said in a statement. It will be made up of members from labor, businesses and the public, and will make a recommendation to the labor commissioner, who will issue a final determination by February.

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An increase in wages could reduce the reliance low-wage workers have on government food subsidies, advocates argued in a report issued July 23 that linked low wages in the restaurant industry to high rates of food insecurity among restaurant workers.

The Restaurant Opportunity Center of NY, an advocacy organization, surveyed 130 restaurant workers from more than 50 restaurants in the city. The report, written with other advocacy groups the Food Chain Workers Alliance and California-based Food First, deemed 41% of workers "food insecure."

(The United States Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as the "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.")

By contrast, 14.5% of U.S. households were food insecure in 2012, according to the latest data from the USDA.

"We have to make sure that all workers have the wages that allow them to afford food," Rahul Saksena, policy director for the Restaurant Opportunity Center of NY, said.

The report showed that 28% of workers surveyed received food assistance, such as food stamps.

During the debate last year, advocates pushed to include tipped food-service workers in the minimum wage hike, but legislators settled for a promise from the governor to increase their base pay administratively.

The restaurant industry opposes an increase in base pay for tipped workers, which would be accomplished by shrinking the "tip credit" employers use to avoid paying the regular minimum wage. The tip credit is the difference between the tipped-workers' minimum wage and the regular minimum wage.

The directive came sooner than expected for some who speculated that disagreement over whom to appoint to the board would lead Mr. Cuomo to wait until after the November election before announcing its formation.

The wage board announcement has been part of a flurry made by the governor's office since a report Wednesday in TheNew York Times alleged that Mr. Cuomo's office interfered with an anti-corruption probe. Rivals and several good government groups are pressuring Mr. Cuomo to offer a full response. The governor's office maintains he did nothing improper.